Given the heat and humidity here, a good lawyer might be able to successfully argue that her actions were justified.
Kimberly Dunn of Lake City, Florida put an air conditioner up for sale on Facebook last year. Her husband, whom she was divorcing, and his brother came home to pick it up, and a scuffle ensued. The police report says that she first sat on the unit in order to keep her her and his brother from taking it away, and when her husband tried to remove her from the unit, she attempted to shock him with a pink stun gun.
The police say that the brother shouted “You shot my brother!” and choked Dunn until she blacked out. The ex-husband took the gun and brought it with him as he checked into a nearby hospital, after which Dunn was arrested.
In case you were wondering, Lake City is just southeast of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge — yes, it’s a real place! — in that part of Florida where the phrase “Paddle faster; I hear banjos” is a survival strategy.
“I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13 to obey the laws of the government, because God has ordained them for the purpose of order. Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves and protect the weak and lawful.”
Just as Sessions reached for Romans 13 to justify the policy of family separation, so did the South’s theologians, such as Thornton Stringfellow, insist that scripture bestowed “the authority, from God himself, to hold men and women, and their increase, in slavery, and to transmit them as property forever.”
Here are verses 1 through 5 of Romans 13 from the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible, and they’re what Sessions is referring to:
1. Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.
2. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.
3. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended.
4. For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.
5. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.
Sessions is a Trump-style American conservative, and might rather that you forget about verses 6 and 7 of Romans 13, which tell you that taxes are a good thing:
6. This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing.
7. Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.
And finally, there are verses 8 through 10, which basically say that “love your neighbor” is the law — everything else is a corollary:
8. Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.
9. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
10. Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
Don’t forget that it’s Juneteenth — the day that marks the freeing of people who were enslaved in the U.S.. We still have a way to go before those scales are balanced.
One of the best deals you’ll find at Costco is their food court’s quarter-pound hot dog and refillable 20-ounce drink, which sells for a mere $1.50. The price has remained unchanged since 1984, when they first sold them as a trial run for their food service, and counter to what you’d expect for something that sells at the same price for decades, both the hot dog and the drink are larger than the original.
One of the reasons why they’ve never increased the price of the dog is a directive from Costco co-founder and former CEO Jim Sinegal. When discussing the subject with current CEO Craig Jelinek, who said they were losing money on each sale of the dog-and-drink combo, he replied:
“If you raise [the price of] the effing hot dog, I will kill you. Figure it out.”
Compared to the money that Costco makes, the money they lose on the hot dog combo is a rounding error, and with the goodwill that buys, they might as well consider it a marketing expense with a nice rate of return. Even so, they’ve still taken some measures to reduce their costs without reducing quality by switching away from their original hot dog supplier, Hebrew National, and making their own, and by cutting a deal with Pepsi for the drinks.
People are (rightfully) suspicious of free stuff.
You might wonder why Costco simply doesn’t make the hot dog and drink combo free instead of charging a ridiculously low fee for it, especially since it’s a members-only store. My feeling is that if the combo was free, it would quickly become an abused privilege. The $1.50 barrier, low as it is, prevents Costco shoppers from going overboard, and may even give the combo an air of legitimacy that it might not have if it was free.
Although the hot dog deal’s been around for almost 35 years, there’s been a recent spate of interest in it, as evidenced by these articles:
Kimberly Dunn of Lake City, Florida put an air conditioner up for sale on Facebook last year. Her husband, whom she was divorcing, and his brother came home to pick it up, and a scuffle ensued. The police report says that she first sat on the unit in order to keep her her and his brother from taking it away, and when her husband tried to remove her from the unit, she attempted to shock him with a pink stun gun.
In case you’re wondering who the white-haired fellow in the suit holding the Bible is, that’s 
